Bath Literature Festival

Over 100 events are hosted in Jane Austen's former home town for the annual Bath Literature Festival. It is held at venues around the spa town, including the Assembly Rooms, Guildhall, Forum, Bath Abbey and, about 20 miles south, Wells Cathedral.

The Bath Literature Festival invites various authors to discuss their work, while scientists, politicians, writers and thinkers debate the topics of the day. Study workshops, storytellers and children's events complete the programme.

The 2009 festival explores a number of themes throughout the debates and presentations, which are: Retrospectives, Wild Places, Intimate Lives, The Cutting Edge and Best of British literature, and, to mark the bicentenary of his birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin Species, a Darwin strand.

Bath Festivals Trust was created in 1993 to develop Bath as a Festivals City, with an overall mission "to enrich people's lives through participation in the arts". For full details of the Bath Literature Festival programme, please visit the festival website.